WELCOME.
Take a moment to kick off your shoes, relax, and refill your cup. Enjoy some poetry and a bit of art.
Browse through the assorted offerings, and hopefully you'll find something helpful, informative, or just fun.
Oh, And chocolate!

The Father of our Country, a plagiarist?!? Here are a few gems. (The misspellings are the property of the author.)

22. Shew not yourself glad at the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy.
50. Be not hasty to beleive flying Reports to the Disparag[e]ment of any.
64. Break not a Jest where none take pleasure in mirth Laugh not aloud, nor
at all without Occasion, deride no mans Misfortune, tho’ there Seem to
be Some cause.
65. Think before you Speak pronounce not imperfectly nor bring ou[t] your Words too hastily but orderly & distinctly.
82. Undertake not what you cannot Perform but be Carefull to keep your Promise.
110. Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Ce[les]tial fire Called Conscience.

I have always enjoyed Rumi's poetry, but this recording irritated me. It was more like a piece of performance art with drums and other instruments. I'm sure that the aim was to evoke a certain atmosphere, but it failed for me. I'll stick to reading Rumi in the future.

A Stone I died

A stone I died and rose again a plant;
A plant I died and rose an animal;
I died an animal and was born a man.
Why should I fear? What have I lost by death?

This anthology sprung from a really great idea for celebrating National Poetry Month. Subscribers were sent a poem a day by email, 30 in all.

Of the thirty poems included, many read by their authors, only four are by women, and several poets had multiple poems included. When you consider the number of poets from which the editors had to choose, this is an incredible lack of variety.

Black Labrador - David Young

1.
Churchill called his bad visits from depressiona big black dog. We have reversed that, Winston.
We've named him Nemo, no one, a black hole
where light is gulped — invisible by night:
by day, when light licks everything to shine,
a black silk coat ablaze with inky shade.
He's our black lab, wherein mad scientists
concoct excessive energy. It snows,
and he bounds out, inebriate of cold.
The white flakes settle on his back and neck and nose
and make a little universe.

2.
It's best to take God backward; even sideways
He is too much to contemplate, "a deep
but dazzling darkness," as Vaughan says.
And so I let my Nemo-omen lead me
onward and on toward that deep dark I'm meant
to enter, entertain, when my time comes . . .
The day wheels past, a creaky cart. I study
the rippling anthracite that steadies me,
the tar, the glossy licorice, the sable;
and in this snowfall that I should detest,
late March and early April, I'm still rapt
to see his coat so constellated, starred, re-starred,
making a comic cosmos I can love.

The Good old days at Home Sweet Home - Marge Piercy

On Monday my mother washed.
It was the way of the world,
all those lines of sheets flapping
in the narrow yards of the neighborhood,
the pulleys stretching out second
and third floor windows.

Down in the dank steamy basement,
wash tubs vast and grey, the wringer
sliding between the washer
and each tub. At least every
year she or I caught
a hand in it.

Tuesday my mother ironed.
One iron was the mangle.
She sat at it feeding in towels,
sheets, pillow cases.
The hand ironing began
with my father's underwear.

She ironed his shorts.
She ironed his socks.
She ironed his undershirts.
Then came the shirts,
a half hour to each, the starch
boiling on the stove.

I forgot bluing. I forgot
the props that held up the line
clattering down. I forgot
chasing the pigeons that shat
on her billowing housedresses.
I forgot clothespins in the teeth.

I don't know if it's a tribute to Mr. Mankell's powers of description, the interpretation of those responsible for the TV series, or the acting chops of Kenneth Branagh, but as I listened to these stories I was transported to the same dreary, grey world I saw on television.

I have to be honest here. The plots of Mankell's stories are quite good, but poor Kurt Wallander lives in a bleak, cold world, indeed. The scenery around him more than matches the landscape within.

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If you find errors on this BLOG, something is incorrectly cited, or something belongs to you, no harm was intended. Please let me know and errors will be rectified as soon as possible.Thank you.The management (of sorts).